Arkon, I've just about got every one of your powers set up as Macros, you can do too damn much stuff : , it was a bit of a pain since I had to learn how to do some custom coding to make it appear correctly in the chat window but your character is done.

At this point I doubt I'll get everyone's characters finished who aren't doing their own macros by game time but this won't change the play it just won't be as pretty and automated for everyone this first session.

Destructor, I have never used MapTool, can you give me a synopsis of what I need to do before Saturday night?

I highly recommend downloading the program as well - then you don't have to redownload it every time you want to run it. Plus, you can pull it beforehand and make sure it runs. In theory, this direct link should work.

Rich, should I send you my Token file before Saturday so you can look it over and see if I did it right? I think I've remembered all the rules and such from, but I'm not sure.

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"All opinions posted are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled."

I've probably missed it, but what time are we getting together on Saturday? (I'm Central time).

Well since nobody has objected to playing when Destructor is available we'll play when he gets home from work, about what time will that be?

Well, I'll be home at roughly 6:15PM PST (9:15PM EST) on Saturday. I'll see if I can get off of work a bit early, but who knows if that'll happen or not. I'll fire up the PC and be ready to play right after. I'll also be sure that I'm ready to go beforehand, so all I need to do is sign in and drop my token in place.

Quote from: Arkon on July 16, 2009, 11:16:01 PM

Ok, have the program downloaded, what is all this about tokens and macros?

Once you've downloaded the program and successfully run it for the first time, head over to here and download the file there. Basically it's a sample campaign file that has a sample character with some powers already set up for you to look at, and the link has some pretty good directions on how to make your own macros and such for your own token.

There's a lot to it, and you have to have a decent grasp on the game mechanics (as well as understand some of what the directions are trying to say), but it's a nice feeling of accomplishment once you get it all done.

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"All opinions posted are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled."

Okay, here's the info for my character. He's mostly intended to support the two Defenders with ranged attacks from behind the front line, but he can also shapeshift into a melee form as needed. I also traded in "Ritual Caster" for "Alchemist" even though I should probably examine the rules for that to make sure it's a good idea.

1) While I can make a macro that allows me to choose a target and automatically Mark it, it still has to do a dice roll against that target (but doesn't roll damage or anything else). Any way that you know of to turn off the rolling as it looks ugly?

2) How exactly does the "As above, maximized" header work under Primary Damage? My problem is that I have multiple powers that use a specific damage range for each, and instead of putting in 1[W] into Damage Dice, I have to choose the Caster method of doing it (filling out the Damage Bonus field). Unfortunately, once I put in the Damage Bonus, I have no way to tell the macro what it should do when I roll a crit. No matter what I put into the As Above, Maxmized field, it still adds in the original dice roll to the damage done for whatever reason.

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"All opinions posted are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled."

Ok I was going to start to make macros for Arnir's Dragonborn Cleric this morning when I noticed something odd on his character sheet. For some reason the character creator is messed up or I'm missing a rule somewhere hopefully one of you can help me understand this.

Arnir's AC modifier can be Dex or Int the same as anyone else whichever is higher, when putting his character through the creator this is fine it chooses Int. and gives him an AC of 11.

When you get to the equipment part and if you buy any of the armors below chainmail and equip that it stacks on his +1 from Int but when he equips the +6 chainmail the total only comes to 16 instead of 17, anyone know if there is some weird rule that negates his Int modifier when equiping Heavy armor?

When you get to the equipment part and if you buy any of the armors below chainmail and equip that it stacks on his +1 from Int but when he equips the +6 chainmail the total only comes to 16 instead of 17, anyone know if there is some weird rule that negates his Int modifier when equiping Heavy armor?

That's exactly the rule. If you're in Light Armor, you apply either your Dex or Int mod to your AC (whichever is higher). If you're in Heavy (there is no Medium) you lose that bonus. I had to fight with that as it seems my Swordmage has a really low AC in Light Armor, but with his Int score and other bonuses, it's actually very respectable.

EDIT: Page 212 of the Player's Handbook under Armor Types holds the answer detail for you.

« Last Edit: July 17, 2009, 03:54:55 PM by Destructor »

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"All opinions posted are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled."

Just wanted to let you know Rich that I've sent you an updated file. Changed my stats around a bit and additionally I have what I think is a completed Token as well. Let me know if anything seems off, okay?

Additionally - do you want me to work on AA's Token incase you don't have time to get to it? Or for that matter - AA, are you going to have the time to do your own Token before tomorrow?

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"All opinions posted are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled."

Just wanted to let you know Rich that I've sent you an updated file. Changed my stats around a bit and additionally I have what I think is a completed Token as well. Let me know if anything seems off, okay?

Additionally - do you want me to work on AA's Token incase you don't have time to get to it? Or for that matter - AA, are you going to have the time to do your own Token before tomorrow?

Looking over your macros now and there are just a few things I've noticed right off.

Ok on your Sword Burst I don't quite understand why you had to choose Damage bonus + equip mods, if you just use damage bonus it seems to do the same thing, what does the equip mods part do?

Other than that I've only seen a few wording issues, like the Sword Burst is a Close burst 1 not a Melee Weapon on range, that only changes the description of the power in the popup I believe it has nothing to do with the mechanics of the roll.

One other thing I've been doing is putting the power name in the Execution-Use short description field so that the power's name will appear in the chat panel. That's just so everyone can see what power you just used.

In the custom code section on the Greenflame Strike I just made another small cosmetic change, I added Hit: All...... so that it would look more like it does in the book, I'm OCD that way.

Oh yeah I looked at the Aegis of Shielding last night and couldn't find a way to mark without rolling either. I'm sure there is a way if it was done entirely in the custom code but that's beyond me atm and time is against learning that.

Just wanted to let you know Rich that I've sent you an updated file. Changed my stats around a bit and additionally I have what I think is a completed Token as well. Let me know if anything seems off, okay?

One other thing I've been doing is putting the power name in the Execution-Use short description field so that the power's name will appear in the chat panel. That's just so everyone can see what power you just used.

Ok I must have messed something up with my campaign file because when I went and put Arkons character into the basic framework file his powers came up with the green field in the chat without having to do that Execution thing. I messed something up and have to track down what I did to change that and change it back.

One minute later:

Well that was easy, I accidently turned that off when I was trying to figure out how to hide the monsters info from the players, so just ignore that whole thing about the Use Short Description shit.

Ok on your Sword Burst I don't quite understand why you had to choose Damage bonus + equip mods, if you just use damage bonus it seems to do the same thing, what does the equip mods part do?

One other thing I've been doing is putting the power name in the Execution-Use short description field so that the power's name will appear in the chat panel. That's just so everyone can see what power you just used.

Since the Swordmage uses his weapon as his implement, any bonuses to the weapon (Longsword +1 for example) would also modify the Attack and Damage numbers. After a quick check of the Character Builder, it seems to agree with me.

And when I experimented with the powers on my end, it would always say the name of the power in the chat box whenever I clicked on them. I didn't need to use Execution - Short Description to say what I used (and instead I used the Flavor Text back at the Starting Rows tab to 'show off' what I'm using).

And Rich, if you'd like, I'm off from work today, so I could join you with Arkon in making sure I remember what I'm doing with Maptool/4th Ed in general. My Steam name is Destructor, so you can ping me there.

EDIT: After reading through the forums, there apparently is no way to mark somebody without making an attack roll like I'm doing in my macro. It's something the developer wanted to do, but he never had the chance in the end without a major rewrite.

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Destructor, I can't as I leave for work before long, I've sent Arkon his token and instructions on how to get it into the basic veggie framework.

I didn't get shit done with Arnir's character today, my dad stopped by to chat my ear off half the morning. Right now the only two characters that have completed macros I believe are yours and Arkons. I don't even have Crux's character unless he decided against the whole hybrid thing and is sticking with his original rogue he sent me.

Some of these races/class builds have so many macros the damn Ranger I had done before Jeff dropped out wasn't near as hard as these other classes.

I noticed a few of you have chosen backgrounds in the character creator, for this first adventure that's fine but for the main adventure module we'll be running I'm going to limit these backgrounds to the FR, ok.

Any suggested changes or ideas or thoughts about the character. I was just learning the whole 4E stuff for fighters and now I will be starting from scratch with a cleric and a dragonborn.

Ahha, there's your older post talking about your character. Well, the first thing that comes to mind is just how many odd stat points you have. I'd readjust your stats so you have more even stat levels. The second is your Strength level. Either the Cleric has a lot of Strength based attacks, or you really want to wade into melee and crush the ever-living crap out of things.

I'd go into the Character Builder, select your Race and Class, and then hit Auto Pick. It gives you a decent start to see what's a good stat assortment for your class. Doing it myself, it seems that there are a ton of Strength based attacks for a Cleric. Huh. I would've never imagined that.

Looking further, there's two ways to 'build' a Cleric it seems - get lots of Strength (good for a Dragonborn), wade into melee, and smack the ever-living crap out of things. Or you get lots of Wisdom (not exactly a Dragonborn specialty, but it can happen), and attack at range/buff other party members.

Keep in mind that the Warden and myself will be attempting to keep the mobs occupied (thus allowing the rest of the party to do the real damage), and having the Cleric wade into melee might not be the best idea. However, you can be decently armored...so I think it could happen.

In short - it's all up to you. There's no real way to build a 'bad' character (unless you completely ignore the stats you need for your powers), so pick one and go with it. Just keep this in mind - I'm going Dragonbreath Lightning this time around, so choose a different power.

AA, as our healer last time around, do you have any suggestions?

« Last Edit: July 18, 2009, 05:19:47 AM by Destructor »

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"All opinions posted are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled."

Something people often forget is that in the D&D world the Cleric is basically a 2nd fighter and not that much different from a Paladin. I also believe in 4e that a lot of healing spells depend on or key off of the Cleric actually hitting the enemy, I'm going to have to trust you guys on a lot of the class stuff since I haven't had a chance to really study anything other than a few of their powers. The Cleric class in D&D at least in the Greyhawk setting has always been a bit more unique than the way the healer is treated in almost any other fantasy setting. Hopefully someday I'll get to run an Eberron adventure and someone can play a Dragonmarked Halfling and do some serious healing.

Something people often forget is that in the D&D world the Cleric is basically a 2nd fighter and not that much different from a Paladin. I also believe in 4e that a lot of healing spells depend on or key off of the Cleric actually hitting the enemy, I'm going to have to trust you guys on a lot of the class stuff since I haven't had a chance to really study anything other than a few of their powers. The Cleric class in D&D at least in the Greyhawk setting has always been a bit more unique than the way the healer is treated in almost any other fantasy setting. Hopefully someday I'll get to run an Eberron adventure and someone can play a Dragonmarked Halfling and do some serious healing.

That was kind of my view of the cleric these days. Not really the priest standing in the back chanting healing incantations but more of magical Knight Hospitaller. My first impression is that the paladin and cleric are kind of similar now with the former really being a specialized subset of lawful good of the latter.

Anyway, my design philosophy was along the above lines. Has to get into the fray to heal and hurt. That's why I went with the heavy armor although I should examine what might happen if I go Light instead. I just worry that if I am healing, etc and not paying attention to the fray, chainmail would be a much better choice - at least from a role playing perspective.

I also chose ritual caster because it looked like it would have some possible campaign uses. It's tempting to max out for battle, but I don't think that is always useful in the long run.

Did we decide on a voice client yet?

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If the road home crosses any landscape features that include words like "forgotten," "void," "razorthorn," "shadowmist," or "doom," then I vote that we take a nap first.

Crap I had find voice chat client down on my to do list but still missed it. I'd really like to try Steam for today if for no other reason than it's one less thing for me to have to find and get running before the session.

Does Steam work for everyone as a voice client? I know most of us belong to a GT-RPG steam group already from last year.

I have Steam, in fact I got it for the session last year. We we using Skype in the end? I know I installed it but never use it, but it is ringing a bell from the game last time.

We tried Skype and it didn't work out (required too much bandwith/CPU power), and used Steam for quite a bit. In the end though, somebody had a Ventrillo server and we used that. At least that's what I remember.

Steam voice chat is pretty easy - just get into the GT-RPG group (or get invited into it), and there's an option somewhere to start voice chat.

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"All opinions posted are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled."

I have Steam, in fact I got it for the session last year. We we using Skype in the end? I know I installed it but never use it, but it is ringing a bell from the game last time.

We tried Skype and it didn't work out (required too much bandwith/CPU power), and used Steam for quite a bit. In the end though, somebody had a Ventrillo server and we used that. At least that's what I remember.

Steam voice chat is pretty easy - just get into the GT-RPG group (or get invited into it), and there's an option somewhere to start voice chat.

I'm in the group. I guess any of us can invite other members? Who isn't in the group yet?

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If the road home crosses any landscape features that include words like "forgotten," "void," "razorthorn," "shadowmist," or "doom," then I vote that we take a nap first.

I have steam installed at home, tho have never done anything beyond download a few games with it.

Is Arkon your Steam name? I think we have to have that to invite you into the group. Crayolasmoker is the admin, but I don't know if he has to invite or not.edit: If you haven't already, I think you need to go to the community tab and join the Steam community.

« Last Edit: July 18, 2009, 05:56:32 PM by Arnir »

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If the road home crosses any landscape features that include words like "forgotten," "void," "razorthorn," "shadowmist," or "doom," then I vote that we take a nap first.